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LED Lighting for 5 foot Aquarium

Mike Charlie said:
do you think they would be ok for carpeting the Monte Carlo?
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Yes. I Grow HC no problem with light output, just fish tend to lift it up and eat the roots away 🙁

The supplied tubes are too red/pink for my linking (probably 6500K), still makes plants grow fine. But I use in combination with two Juwel Hi-Lite day tubes (8000K), make the plants looks a lot "greener".

I have reflectors as well.
 
Is that 45cm water column if you measure from top of substrate or just tank height, if it's substrate then might just go that route as I will be building my substrate thickish, although one of local shops has some leds that they are getting me information on so will wait to see that as well.
 
Right so that should be plenty for what I want then, going to check out some of there other products a bit more as I've seen a 6 bulb one so could play with something like a couple of lights extra at different times of day in different colours to give better look, still might not look natural but cheaper I can make this the better
 
Found these as well now https://www.fish-fish-fish.com/aqua...bquWDrZp0ytsbNkKpWHZG8eDyaZ-i2bRoCDNMQAvD_BwE they state that they replace 54 watt t5 for same light quality, does this have any ring of truth do you think? I have led spotlights in house and know they are a lot brighter than there wattage suggests. If that's the case then 4 of these would provide same light intensity as the one Ian linked for a cheaper running cost which would allow me more monthly treats for the tank.
 
Mike Charlie said:
Found these as well now https://www.fish-fish-fish.com/aqua...bquWDrZp0ytsbNkKpWHZG8eDyaZ-i2bRoCDNMQAvD_BwE they state that they replace 54 watt t5 for same light quality
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I would steer clear. Probably OK, but they don't state any lumen figures so you can't compare and seem a tad cheap for their supposed T5 length.

An Arcadia 54W T5 HO tube is about 5000 lumens.

These are proper LED T5 replacements. The equivalent 54W T5 length of these is 5400 lumens. (but notice that consumes 62W, so LED's are not always lower power than fluorescent). A proper job.
https://www.allpondsolutions.co.uk/aquarium/lighting/aquatlantis-led/universal-lighting-freshwater/
 
Just enquire as to which LED are used - for water column depth above 45cm, you need minimum 1watt LED in order to have significant PAR at substrate level

I tried Current USA Satellite LED + PRO (1.2 watt SMD LED) on my 60cm x 45cm x 53cm (high) tank - light at substrate was like shade, maybe Anubias would manage ... on my 36cm high tank it's brilliant at substrate level

as an example
100 PAR at 45cm water depth
5 - 10 - 20 PAR at 55cm water depth
This is a memory estimate rather than actual values, takes a good deal of searching to find PAR values through water (through air is useless) for the various LEDs that are used in lighting
Then reflectors & lens & cool running come in as factors

Manufacturers also tend to report the highest PAR measured rather than showing the range that actually occurs across the suggested "suitable use" surface area (ie that 24" surface area) - I believe Ecotech may have some decent 3D PAR graphs in their technical pages

Sanjay Joshi has many in his articles, going back to MH & T5 & now LED (though some manufactures requested their models be removed from his articles)
 
Yeah didn't think about checking the lumens after checking a few German sites (English sites don't seem to include it?) it stated as being just under 2000 definitely give it a miss in that case, I'm confused about the leds using more electricity for same rating, if the led is more than the t5 in cost and running cost what would be the benefit of using leds instead?
 
Zeus you state t5 has light output of 4300, would reflectors make that equivalent to 8600? I'm confused how undirected light strength is calculated also so much cheaper than buying from the fish shop sometimes forget how much something increases because it's for aquarium use.
 
Mike Charlie said:
Zeus you state t5 has light output of 4300, would reflectors make that equivalent to 8600?
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No the output of a T5 tube lumens is in all directions, adding a reflector focusses the light into the tank, rather than into room and/or aquarium hood and/or your eyes when tank fiddling.

See here for pictures.
https://www.iquaticsonline.co.uk/reflectors/t5-reflectors/2-x-54w-t5-aluminium-reflector.html

Mike Charlie said:
I'm confused about the leds using more electricity for same rating, if the led is more than the t5 in cost and running cost what would be the benefit of using leds instead?
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Yes people get on their high horses about LED's using less power, greenness etc but that is not always 100% true.

I good T5 HO tube will do about 100 Lumens per Watt power. eg the 54W Arcadia tube.

Smaller lower power LED's (say 1/3 W each) as used by cheaper LED light suppliers are around 30-40 lumens per Watt, this is still significantly greater than a standard incandescent light bulb of 5 lumens per Watt (15 Lumens per Watt for halogen bulbs). The Aqualantis units are 90 lumens per Watt so not too different from T5 HO. To get greater efficiency you need to move to 1W, 3W & 10W single LED's where efficiencies start at over 100 Lumens per Watt. But these LED's start at a couple of £ each thus the light fixture will not be cheap, which is why proper aquatic LED lights cost in the £100's.

Main advantage of LED's is possibly, though always as you have seen, lower running cost. However 2 x 54W T5 HO cost about £50 a year to run @ 8 hours a day, LED's might be 3/4 that so saving £15 a year. You need to work out pay back time.

Another LED advantage is life time. LED's if designed properly ie LED's cooled correctly & properly (non Chinese !!!) electronics will last 50,000 hours to 80% brightness (17 years at 8 hours a day). T5 HO are rated 80% brightness in 20,000 hours. However in practice cheaper LED's electronics will fail before the LED's and T5 tubes heaters (at the ends of the tubes) will fail before the light output drops.
 
Right so it was more to direct.

If they last longer than it might still be worth looking at other ones, I'm confused about lumens on LEDs, what would penetrate the water more or would it be equal, 1 100w producing 10000 lumens or 10 10w producing 1000 lumens each

I was starting to think about building my own LEDs I know how to do soldering and the electronic side but the lighting part really confuses me getting the output correct
 
To throw another spanner in the works lumens is only a rough guide. PAR readings are the gold standard as it's measure of the light the plants can use. PAR at various depths of water better still, as some light penitration is better than others.

Sent from Mountolympus via neural interface
 
Oh come on I get hang of one aspect of the lights and then there something else haha :lol:
Is lumen more or less directly related to PAR as in 10,000 lumens would give better PAR then 5000 lumens all the time or would some 5000 lumen lights be better than some 10,000 lumens
 
Mike Charlie said:
Is lumen more or less directly related to PAR as in 10,000 lumens would give better PAR then 5000 lumens all the time or would some 5000 lumen lights be better than some 10,000 lumens
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Yip spanner in works. PAR (photosynthetic available radiation) is the bit of light spectrum that plants can use. PAR from T5 is generally higher than the same lumen LED, just because T5 have a broader output spectrum. But by mixing different colour LED's, rather than just having white one can get higher PAR values. Again more expensive LED fixtures contain a mix of LED's, white, red, green and blue to have both high PAR values and high lumens and a light output that makes plants stand out eg Look at Kessils, high lumens and high PAR (and high price).
 
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